DRI seizes 107 litres mephedrone worth Rs 160cr; 2 held from Sambhajinagar firm
Source: TimesOfIndia
The Directorate Revenue of Intelligence (DRI) in Pune seized 107 liters of liquid mephedrone, valued at Rs 160 crore, from a pharma company in MIDC Paithan. The director and manager of the company were arrested. The DRI had previously raided the company on October 20 but the liquid mephedrone was hidden. This seizure comes shortly after a joint operation by DRI teams in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Pune resulted in the seizure of narcotics worth over Rs 250 crore. The accused will be produced before a special court in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
The DRI officials found the liquid mephedrone after searching the two factories for almost 36 hours. CHHATRAPATI SAMBHAJINAGAR: The Pune regional unit of the directorate revenue of intelligence (DRI) seized 107 litre of liquid mephedrone, worth Rs 160 crore, from an MIDC Paithan-based private limited pharma company on Sunday. The director and manager of the pharma company have been arrested.
“Search of two factory premises of a company, named M/s Apex Medichem Pvt. Ltd, resulted in the recovery of about 107 litre of liquid mephedrone. The market value of these narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances has been reported to be approximately Rs 160 crores. All the recovered substances have been seized under the relevant provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985,” stated the DRI press release issued on Sunday evening.
A senior DRI official said, “After searching these factories for close to two 36 hours, we found the liquid mephedrone. They (the company personnel) had tried to hide these during our earlier raid on October 20.”
After finding the liquidated mephedrone, DRI arrested Saurabh Gondhalekar, one of the directors of the company, and company manager Shekhar Pagar. The accused would be produced before the special court here in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and their custody would be sought.
The fresh raid and seizure have come within nine days of DRI’s Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Pune teams along with the Ahmedabad crime branch carrying out a joint operation and seizing a large amount of narcotics including mephedrone, ketamine and cocaine worth more than Rs 250 crore from different places in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The teams had arrested Jitesh Hinhoriya, the alleged mastermind of the racket, and his assistant Sandeep Kumawat.
A senior DRI official told TOI, “At the time of the first search, which started on October 20, a team had visited Apex Medichem Pvt. Ltd. However, the premises was shut. While working on the case, we found that Apex Medichem had tried to hide liquid mephedrone. So we reached the premises again on Saturday and initiated a search, which concluded on Sunday.”
The company is located in the MIDC Paithan area, which falls within the jurisdiction of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar rural police. The police said the company specialised in the production of corticosteroids, vitamins and other APIs.
